Thursday, 30 April 2015

"It
is a disgrace that the three main political parties (and UKIP) support workfare
and sanctions. This consensus has allowed the introduction of policies that are
causing ill health, hunger, homelessness and deaths. All three parties have
some responsibility for this and they all have questions to answer.

So
today we’re asking you to take action online and help us break the election
silence on workfare and sanctions. It is unlikely that these issues will even
get a mention during tonight’s Election Leaders
Special edition of Question Time.

Help
us to make sure these issues do get talked about, and tweet up a storm about
workfare and sanctions using the #bbcqt hashtag. And tweet your unanswered
questions to @Ed_Miliband @nick_clegg and @David_Cameron…

Here’s
the low-down on the political parties that support workfare and
sanctions:Vote Labour: Get Workfare

Shamefully
it was the last Labour government who introduced workfare with the Welfare Reform Act of 2009. Under Labour’s
Flexible New Deal thousands of hours of unpaid work was handed out to businesses
like Primark and claimants were forced to work without pay in
hospitals and local councils. The last Labour government also introduced the
hated Work Capability Assessment and extended benefit sanctions to include
disabled people and lone parents. Over the last five years there has been a
complete absence of any opposition from Labour to any of the workfare and
sanctions policies introduced by the coalition. Labour’s support for the
retrospective Workfare
Bill was particularly disgraceful.

Labour’s
manifesto promises to introduce a Compulsory Jobs
Guarantee for young people and the long-term unemployed. Previous statements
indicate that the compulsory jobs would be paid at 25 hours of minimum wage and
involve an additional 10 hours unpaid “training” each week. Those unable or
unwilling to accept the compulsory jobs will be sanctioned “in line with the existing sanctions regime”. Labour have
also pledged to withdraw unemployment benefits completely from young people and
replace them with a Youth Allowance paid at the same rate. This allowance would
be means tested and conditional on young people being in “training”.

Vote
Liberal Democrats: Get Workfare

The
Liberal Democrats have supported every workfare and sanctions policy introduced
by the Conservatives over the last five years (including the retrospective
Workfare Bill) and must share responsibility for the ill health, hunger,
homelessness and deaths caused by coalition policies. Nick Clegg’s Youth Contract created thousands of unpaid workfare placements
resulting in millions of hours of unpaid work. In their manifesto the Lib Dems
say they will expand the availability of unpaid work placements into new
sectors.

Vote
Conservative: Get Workfare

The
last five years of Conservative-led government have seen a proliferation of
workfare schemes and a huge increase in the number of benefit sanctions. Claimants
can now be forced to work for 6 months without pay. Benefits can now be stopped
for up to 3 years. Predictably these policies are having disastrous
consequences. With the introduction of Universal
Credit the Conservatives are seeking to extend workfare and sanctions to low
paid part-time and self-employed workers.

Their
manifesto promises more of the same, with an unspecified £12 billion of cuts to the welfare budget. There are pledges
to send Jobcentre advisors into schools to provide routes into unpaid work;
tougher “Day One Work Requirements” for young claimants; the ending of housing
benefit for young people; and sanctions for claimants who refuse “recommended treatment”. Like Labour, they say they will
replace JSA for young people with a Youth Allowance. This would be limited to 6
months – after which young people will be forced onto apprenticeships, unpaid
traineeships or community work.

And
finally…

Vote
UKIP: Get Workfare

At
the last election UKIP’s policy document on social security was entitled “From
Welfare to Workfare”. This was an incredibly offensive tract which cited the
Daily Mail as evidence and described claimants as “a parasitic underclass of scroungers”. Tellingly, one of the
workfare proposals suggested was that claimants should be forced to work without
pay to build prisons (presumably for themselves). This time around it seems
that UKIP have decided that workfare is no longer a vote winner and have
disappeared the policy from their manifesto. It should be noted though that
workfare was endorsed at their last conference and is still listed on their website as one of the reasons to vote for
UKIP."

Manningham Mills dominated Bradford's skyline in the late 19th century. It employed 5000 low paid non-unionised works. Many were women. In 1890 an 8% dividend had been issued to shareholders. But on 9 December 1890 Samuel Lister, the millionaire owner, posted a notice outlining reductions in pay of between 15 and 33% for weavers, pickers, spoolers and winders. Some 1,1000 workers in all would be hit (Dominguez 2013).

Company director Jose Reixach justified the move, saying that the workers concerned had been being paid "unnaturally high" wages. There was outrage on the factor floor. Though few were in a union at this stage they called in officials from the Weavers' Textile Workers' Association. By the end of March 1891 some 5000 were out on strike.

The strikers faced hostility from Liberal and Tory councillors, from the courts, the press and the police. But they also rallied massive public support -one mass protest meeting on 19 April attracted up to 90,000 people.

The dispute lasted four months in all. And although the strikers were finally starved into submission it changed politics forever. The strike leaders saw the need for the workers' to have their own political party.

The Bradford Labour Union was formed, followed by the Bradford ILP. And then in January 1893 120 delegates met in Bradford to set up the ILP (Independent Labour Party) as a national party.

Alan Stewart

Convenor, Wakefield Socialist History Group

07931927451

p.s. the next meeting of the Wakefield Socialist History Group is on Saturday 9 May 2015, 1-4pm at the Red Shed, Vicarage Street, Wakefield WF1. The topic is THE STORY OF THE ILP -AND LESSONS FOR TODAY. The speakers are Iain Dalton (Socialist Party) and Barry Winter (Independent Labour Publications). The chair is Kitty Rees. Admission is free and there will be a free light buffet.

1. There is a major problem of asbestos in schools. 86% of schools in the country contain asbestos, it is now all old and there is extensive evidence that in some schools it is regularly disturbed so that children and school staff are exposed. The inevitable result is that people are dying.

2. 291 school teachers have died of mesothelioma since 1980, with 158 dying in the last ten years. School cleaners, cooks, caretakers, teaching assistants and school secretaries are also dying. But they are the tip of the iceberg as for every teacher there are twenty to thirty children who are more vulnerable to exposure to asbestos than adults, the younger the child the greater the risk. It is estimated that each year between 200 to 300 people will die from their asbestos exposure as a child at school. The estimate was made based on exposures in the 1960s and 1970s, but all the asbestos is now old and many schools have not been well maintained – so the exposures continue.

3. The following are key recommendations of the Asbestos in Schools Group and the Joint Union Asbestos Committee:

* The increased vulnerability of children to asbestos must underlie all future asbestos policies for schools.

* A risk benefit analysis should be carried out, and made public, that assesses how many staff and pupils are likely to have died and will die from their asbestos exposure at school. It should assess how much it costs to manage asbestos in the nation’s schools and how much a long term strategy of asbestos removal would cost. As part of that the Government should assess the extent of the asbestos problem in schools.

* Asbestos can be one of the most expensive items in maintaining, refurbishing or demolishing a school. But the Government is unaware of the scale of the asbestos problem in schools and they specifically, and inexplicably, excluded asbestos from the £20 million audit of the condition of school buildings. Because of this any future financial forecasts will be meaningless. AiS has always recommended that there should be an audit of the extent, type and condition of asbestos in the nation’s schools so that long term policy can be set, financial forecasts made and those schools with the most dangerous asbestos can be identified and priority given for the removal of asbestos.

* Asbestos insulation board that is accessible to children in schools should never be classed as ‘low’ risk. It should at the very least be enclosed, but AiS recommend that it should be removed.

* Asbestos training should be mandatory for school governors, headteachers, teachers and all support staff with the training tailored to their role.

* As the majority of schools will have to manage their asbestos long into the future a system must be reintroduced that ensures they are maintaining effective and safe standards of asbestos management. AiS recommends that proactive inspections of the standards of asbestos management in all schools should be reintroduced. They should carried out by HSE.

* There has always been a lack of openness over asbestos in schools. It is not acceptable that a few should know the facts and for those facts to be kept from others. AiS has always recommended that a policy of openness is adopted so that people are told the truth.

* So long as asbestos remains in schools it is inevitable that it will be disturbed and damaged so that children and staff are exposed. AiS recommends that the government adopts a long term strategy for the removal of all asbestos from schools, with priority being given to those schools that contain the most dangerous asbestos. Only then will the problem of asbestos in schools be finally eradicated.
AiS and JUAC Statement for International Workers Memorial Day 28 April #IWMD15
Asbestos in Schools, AiS : www.asbestosexposureschools.co.uk Joint Union Asbestos Committee, JUAC: www.juac.org.uk/

The hope of the wow

Who needs the Vow when we’ve got wow? We’ve not only got wow, we’ve got utter gorgeousness. Eat yer heart out George Galloway. A couple of opinion polls were published on Monday, one a proper actual opinion poll of voters in Scotland with a representative sample and everything. The other was possibly somewhat less scientific, being an online poll of horny Edinburgh gay guys looking for a shag on Grindr.
This is of course tautological, as being on Grindr means that you are by definition a horny gay guy looking for a shag. And these days it’s also getting tautological to state that opinion polls of Scottish voting intentions show that Labour has been totally screwed, nailed to the wall, whammed, bammed and no thank you jam. The poll discovered that 62% of horny gay guys in Edinburgh plan to vote SNP. Proof, as if any proof was needed, that voting SNP means you get sexy, and that the SNP has got the gay vote pretty much in a glamorous clutch bag.
Grindr, for those of you of a shy and retiring heterosexual disposition, is an app for gay men who are looking for a random shag. It doesn’t tend to be used by men who are looking to settle down and get a labrador together. Most guys who use Grindr claim to have unfeasibly large wullies, because profiles on Grindr are about as accurate as Labour party manifesto promises and likewise invariably end in disappointment.
The guy who carried out the poll did a similar poll just before the independence referendum, and got a result which was pretty much spot on in terms of the actual vote. Which only goes to show that horny gay guys are more representative of the population at large than UKIP would care to admit.
The proper poll, carried out for TNS, showed that the SNP currently has the support of 54% of Scotland’s voters. On these figures, and given a uniform national swing, Labour will be left with just one seat in Scotland. Which would mean that Wee Wullie Bain would be Secretary of State for Scotland in a Miliband government because he’d be the only Labour MP left.
Unfortunately for Wee Wullie, the only certain thing about a universal national swing is that it’s entirely mythical. Swings are never uniform, and the swing to the SNP looks like it’s much stronger in the Glasgow area, where some figures suggest the SNP could hoover up 60% of the vote. So Wee Wullie would be out on his ear too. I recently spent some time with Anne McLaughlin, the SNP candidate in Glasgow East, interviewing her for an article for Newsnet Scotland – and it’s fair to say that Wee Wullie doesn’t look like he’s got very many fans on Grindr. This is despite the fact that Labour really does have an unfeasibly large dick in the shape of Jim Murphy.
Jim is now bereft of ideas. He’s tried to bombard us with promises of jam. Whatever happened to the Vow Plus? Gordie gets trotted out with alarming regularity to vow things that get quietly forgotten about a few days later when they’ve been slapped down by the Labour leadership in London. Over the weekend the promise to give a wee bit of jam – quite literally – to food banks in Scotland evaporated like spilt milk in the sunshine, leaving nothing behind but a stain and a bad smell. And the promise to abolish “exploitative” zero hours contracts collapsed in the contradiction of a Labour council which employs 2000 workers on zero hours contracts. So they’re not exploitative when Labour uses them. Labour is the party of do as I say not do as I do. They are out of ideas, out of inspiration, out of hope. Labour is the no-trick pony. They’re just pony.
But it doesn’t matter any more when no one trusts a word you say, and that’s Jim’s real problem, and because of that fact he’s staring an extinction level event in the face. There’s an asteroid on a collision course with the Labour party in Scotland, and the only defence Jim has got left is a tattered umbrella saying SNP bad. The dinosaur complains about the shortcomings of mammals as the fireball lights up the sky.
Jim was at it again today, standing beside Ed Balls and repeating SNP bad to a small audience of Labour activists and press representatives. And this is another example of tautology because Labour never has any other kind of audience these days. If Jim Murphy or Gordie Broon ever did give a speech to an audience of ordinary non-party affiliated Scottish people that really would be news. But that’s as likely to happen as a horny gay guy on Grindr being honest about the size of his wullie.
A part of me weeps that it has come to this. Labour is the junkie child, a product of Scottish communities. But Labour is a part of the family who has gone bad. The only recourse remaining is to kick the badjin out and let it fend for itself without sooking off expenses accounts, because otherwise it just keeps hurting us, it keeps sticking in the knife and turning it. And Labour does that because it takes us for granted like it always has done. Even now, on the edge of extinction it can’t believe that it won’t be forgiven and all its sins forgotten. It’s not like we’ve not given it fair warning. It’s not like we’ve not given it chances, but Labour keeps nicking the cash from our purses and the faith from our hearts. It’s beyond redemption.
Last year the independence referendum showed voters in Scotland that we can still hope of things getting better. We can still hope that our voices will be heard and our opinions count. That is what this election is about for Scotland, hope. We’ve learned how to hope and we’re not going to squander it on Labour’s Grindr profile. Hope is what is driving the opinion polls, but Project Fear is determined to put us back in our shortbread tin. Jim had pinned all his hopes on a late swing, and there is a late swing, it’s just not in the direction Jim was hoping for.
This time it isn’t going to work – there is an army of us spreading the message that hope still lives. We need to keep up the pressure, but we’re in for a rocky ride over the next few days. Let’s keep working, let’s keep hope alive. We’ve got the hope of the wow.

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

In February 2013, the Court of Appeal quashed ‘The Jobseeker’s Allowance (Employment, Skills and Enterprise) Scheme’. The three Judges, Lord Justice Pill, Lady Justice Black and Sir Stanley Burton, ruled that the 2011 Regulations were ultra vires of section 17A of the Jobseeker’s Act 1995 because they failed to prescribe a description of the various schemes launched in August 2011 or the circumstances in which, a person can be required to participate in those schemes or the period during which, participants are required to undertake work on those schemes.

The case centred on whether the Secretary of State was able to create programmes and schemes at a whim rather than issuing Parliament with full details of the myriad of schemes in operation. It was declared that the Secretary of State, Ian Duncan Smith, had not given unemployed people sufficient information about their rights to appeal against being made to work up to 780 hours unpaid and the penalties they would face if they refused. The effect of the ruling meant that almost all of the Government’s work-for-your dole employment schemes were unlawful.

The Court of Appeal ruling meant that thousands of unemployed people (approximately 44,000) who had been unlawfully sanctioned (had their benefits stopped) for not participating in these schemes, were entitled to a refund of their benefits of around £130 million. On 30 October 2013, the decision of the Appeal Court was upheld by the Supreme Court.

The Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) stated that they would resist paying out rebates until all legal avenues had been exhausted. However, following the Court of Appeal ruling, the Government introduced emergency legislation - ‘The Jobseeker’s Allowance (Schemes for Assisting Persons to Obtain Employment) Regulations 2013’ and the ‘Jobseeker’s (Back to Work Schemes) Act 2013’ that was fast tracked through Parliament with the support of most of the opposition.

What both measures sought to do was to validate the 2011 Regulations retrospectively and undo the decision of the Court of Appeal. This did have the effect of retrospectively making unlawful benefit sanctions imposed under the 2011 Regulations lawful in order to deny people rebates.

When these measures were introduced in Parliament in the spring of 2013, some 44 Labour MPs voted against these measures. However, the Labour Party official line was to ‘abstain’ so the Government could get the legislation through.

One of the MPs, who abstained, was Jonathan Reynolds MP, who represents the constituency of Stalybridge and Hyde. In May 2013, he wrote to a constituent to explain why he’d abstained on the Government’s Jobseekers Bill. According to Reynolds, the DWP’s back to work schemes (2011 Regulations), were struck down – not because they were unlawful – but on a technicality, because the DWP had not provided sufficient information to jobseekers about the penalties involved in refusing to participate in their schemes. He added, “The legal judgement was not about the legality or ethics of so-called workfare schemes (which were introduced by the last Labour government). These will always be political, not legal, matters.” He stated that he thought it only reasonable that people should have their benefits stopped if they won’t try to find work. However, he points out that Labour had demanded two crucial concessions: first, that people can appeal against mistakes by the DWP; “We can’t have carte blanche retrospective legislation of sanctions.” Second, there should be an independent review of the sanctions regime.

What Reynolds fails to mention and must have known at the time, is that in supporting this nasty little bill, money illegally taken from jobseekers who had been illegally sanctioned, would not be paid back to them. Labour’s support allowed the Government to backdate changes to the law so they could steal money from the poor.

Even right-wing think tanks like Civitas,were appalled by this shocking move. They asked, is the Government above the law? Moreover, what is the point in taking the Government to court, when they can simply move the goal posts and ignore the ruling, by introducing retrospective legislation that validates it?

Though Labour and Jonathan Reynolds MP, supported the Tory Government, the High Court subsequently found that retrospective legislation designed to render lawful benefits sanctions that were issued under the 2011 Regulations, was ‘incompatible’ with the right to a fair trial. The court called the move ‘draconian’, stating it was not explained or justified and “incompatible with the European Convention on human Rights.” After the ruling, the Government announced that it would appeal to the Supreme Court.

A Blairite and Labour friend of Israel, Jonathan Reynolds was elected to Parliament at the 2010 General Election, following the resignation of his mentor and predecessor, James (work-or-lose-your-dole) Purnell, who turned the seat of Stalybridge & Hyde into a marginal. According to Labour NEC member, Tom Watson MP, Reynolds was not initially put on the NEC’s shortlist, having failed to impress. However, Watson told ‘The Times’, that Reynolds was put on the shortlist of candidates for the vacant seat, following intervention from James Purnell and Peter Mandelson, who wanted him elected.

We are publishing below a recent briefing received from 'Boycott Workfare':

"On
top of punishing claimants with sanctions that leave people destitute, the
Government now has plans to use psychological treatments to force people into
work.

George
Osborne’s budget announced measures to ‘improve employment outcomes’ for
people with mental health conditions. These include online cognitive behavioural
therapy (change the world by changing how you think) for people on ESA or JSA
and putting psychologists in JobCentres.
Unemployment is being redefined as a
psychological disorder and the main purpose of psychological therapy will be to
force people off benefits. Or to promote yet another specious reason to cut
people off benefits.

Meanwhile,
the Tory Manifesto states that claimants who ‘refuse a recommended
treatment’ may have their benefits reduced. This is an assault on the human rights of people on benefits and an attempt to co-opt
medical professionals as state enforcers.

The
‘change your attitude’ message of positive psychology is enforced in mandatory
‘employability’ training courses promising to help with‘self-esteem,
self-confidence and motivation’ and in unsolicited ‘positive thinking’
emails. Making people take part in various pointless and humiliating psycho-group-activities e.g. building paper clip towers to
demonstrate team work, or take completely meaningless and unethical psychological tests to
determine their ‘strengths’.

The
Department for Work and Pensions issues contracts worth hundreds of thousands of
pounds (Focus the Mind, Achieve your Potential) designed to ‘address
negative perceptions’ and ‘instil
a positive attitude to work‘. A programme for JSA/ESA claimants over 50
aims to persuade people that age discrimination doesn’t exist:

“to
challenge perceptions that employers discriminate on the grounds of
age”.

Fraud

These
fraudulent programmes don’t result in real paid work you can live on. The
companies that run them are making millions out of a big con: that with a total
personality makeover, anyone can get a job. That positive thinking can
change the low pay, no pay UK economy.

Psychological
resistance to work

In
another scheme claimants will have interviews to assess whether we
have a ‘psychological resistance’ to work, along with attitude profiling to
judge whether we are ‘bewildered, despondent or determined’. If they decide you
are ‘less mentally fit’ you’ll be sent on ‘more intensive coaching’, while those
who are ‘optimistic’ can be placed on less rigorous regimes. This is how they
will decide who is to be punished with ‘extra support’ i.e. forced to spend 35
hours a week at a JobCentre.

Sanctions

The
growing use of psychology, with practically every JobCentrePlus manager an expert in the topic, is not helping people with mental health
problems whose suffering at the hands of this system has been well documented - with more than 100 people a day with mental
health problems losing their benefits through sanctions.

The
newly privatised Behavioural Insights Team has trained over 20,000 JobCentre
staff in ‘behavioural techniques‘ with DWP managers regularly sending
out positive psychology tweets to ‘motivate’ staff to meet targets. Targets that
result in escalating sanctions.

Positive
psychology

Positive
psychology messages are so stupid, they are laughable. But being told day in,
day out, that it’s our fault we’re unemployed or in such low paid work that we
have to claim benefits can really get to people. The language of workshy
scroungers is a deliberate attempt to put people down and undermine support for
hard won welfare rights. Claimants are expected to show a positive attitude to
being exploited or be sent on 6 months Community Work Placement for ‘lack of
motivation’ or be referred to a psychologist for questioning your job coach.

BPS
inquiry

Before
Christmas, the president elect of the British Psychological
SocietyJamie Hacker
Hughes responded to our concerns by promising to hold an inquiry. That was
then. Inspite of repeated reminders, there is nothing on the BPS website about
the inquiry. No terms of reference. No information about how people who’ve been
through various workfare psycho-interventions can submit their testimonies. All
we’ve had from BPS on the issue of psychology, workfare and ethics so far is
a press release saying that it’s fine to test claimants for ‘psychological
resistance to work‘ as long as the person doing the tests is
‘qualified’.

We’re
not holding our breath for the BPS inquiry. In the meantime, we welcome your own
testimony on how psychology is used to manipulate, blame, punish and coerce
people on benefits.

What
you can do

Let
the British Psychological Society know we won’t stand for compulsory positive
psychology and mandatory psychological treatment. We expect them to speak out.
You could also ask them what happened to the inquiry into psychology and
workfare promised by their President Professor Jamie Hacker
Hughes back in November 2014?

Contractors, companies who block and blacklist those who have a history of trade union activity.

I will not tolerate that in the country I lead.

So that is why we will have a full inquiry that is transparent and public into blacklisting.

With one purpose and one purpose alone:

To put an end to blacklisting right across the United Kingdom.

And throughout the history of this movement, you have fought most of all for people’s right to work."

Blacklist Support Group welcome Labour's public commitment to a full inquiry into blacklisting. If Ed Milliband becomes PM in May, we will be knocking on his door asking for a full public inquiry and asking to be involved in drawing up the remit before it begins.

2. Special Branch spied on union activists, General Secretaries and MPs at Wapping dispute

Justice for Jenny?: All Eyes on the University of Bolton for Appeal Outcome

The University of Bolton has the opportunity to overturn its controversial decision to dismiss Jenny Markey when an appeal hearing is held on Wednesday.

Jenny was employed as an academic administrator in the health and community studies department until being summarily dismissed last month.

Jenny’s dismissal followed the sacking of her husband Damien – a senior lecturer at the University and an activist in the UCU union. Damien’s appeal hearing takes place on Tuesday.

Both Jenny and Damien were dismissed over allegations that they had brought the University into disrepute after details of the financial affairs of vice-chancellor George Holmes appeared in the media. The dismissals were highly unusual in that the University did not follow normal procedure – the dismissals were sudden and did not follow a proper investigation.

The Markeys’ treatment has led to a campaign for their reinstatement that has been well-supported by university staff, students and the public. An online petition has attracted over 3,000 signatures.

Jenny Markey is a UNISON member and the union will be representing her at the appeal hearing. UNISON North West Regional Manager Steve Stott said:

'All eyes will be on the University this week to see if common sense prevails at the appeal hearing. Jenny and Damien have been very harshly treated by the University and it is rare for a high-profile employer to behave so badly. UNISON will be supporting Jenny through the appeal process and beyond if necessary in pursuit of a fair outcome.'

The blockbusting book, Blacklisted: The secret war between big business and union activists, is being launched at the Kings Arms in Salford this Friday 1st May, 6pm, with its co-author Dave Smith, and the Assistant General Secretary of Unite Gail Cartmail.

The book documents the illegal and secret blacklisting of trade unionists in the construction industry by corporations with collusion of the police and secret services. As Dave Smith states, "It is no longer an industrial relations issue: it is a human rights issue".

Writing in The Guardian recently, Dave Smith, co-author of Blacklisted: The secret war between big business and union activists, stated...
"The UK's secret political police are spying on me. I know this because the Metropolitan police have refused to provide a copy of my police file. The reason? To do so `would be likely to prejudice the prevention and detection of crime'. My `crime' is being a trade unionist, campaigning to expose the scandal that led to more than 3,200 people being blacklisted by building contractors..."
...and, no doubt, writing a blockbusting book documenting it all. It centres on a blacklist of trade union activists compiled by The Consulting Association, which formally came to light during a raid in 2009 by the Information Commissioner's Office and the seizure of files with personal details on thousands of people.
As Dave writes, "it became obvious that some of the information in them could only have come from the police or the security services. This was confirmed by David Clancy, head of investigation for the ICO (and formerly a Greater Manchester police officer).
"Peter Francis, former undercover police officer turned whistleblower, revealed he spied on some blacklisted workers because of their anti-BNP activities" he adds "And the same information he collated appeared on their blacklist files. Unions and MPs called for a public inquiry, which was flatly rejected by David Cameron, Theresa May and Vince Cable."The Consulting Association was funded by some of the biggest construction companies in the country over a 16 year period and led to workers being unable to get employment, with horrific effects on their families. Indeed, Smith calls it a "systematic conspiracy involving the state"...
"Blacklisting" he states "is just the latest in a long history of British state anti-unionism stretching back to Tolpuddle. It is no longer an industrial relations issue: it is a human rights issue. A conspiracy between big business, the police and the security services, and the refusal to disclose information that everyone knows exists amounts to a good old-fashioned establishment cover-up."Blacklisted: The secret war between big business and union activistsby Dave Simth and Phil Chamberlain (New Internationalist)Book LaunchFriday May 1stKings Arms, Bloom Street 6pmwith co-author Dave Smith, and Gail Cartmail, Assistant General Secretary of Unite.

Monday, 27 April 2015

We are publishing below a briefing from Boycott Workfare:1. Ed Milliband speech to Scottish TUC this
week:

"In days gone by, people didn’t have the
right to join a trade union.

And were
thrown out of work if they campaigned for better rights.

But today, we still have
the odious practice of blacklisting.

Contractors, companies who
block and blacklist those who have a history of trade union activity.

I will not tolerate that
in the country I lead.

So that is why we will
have a full inquiry that is transparent and public into blacklisting.

With one purpose and one
purpose alone:

To put an end to
blacklisting right across the United Kingdom.

And throughout the history
of this movement, you have fought most of all for people’s right to work."

Blacklist Support
Group welcome Labour's public commitment to a full inquiry into blacklisting. If
Ed Milliband becomes PM in May, we will be knocking on his door asking for a
full public inquiry and asking to be involved in drawing up the remit before it
begins.

2. Special Branch spied on union activists,
General Secretaries and MPs at Wapping dispute

Today,
Monday 27 April, the welfare-to-work industry is holding its AGM. The ERSA –
the organisation that does spin and lobbying for workfare exploiters – is
meeting to discuss the year in workfare and new ways of making the sector
respectable.

We
don’t know the location yet. Since our noise
demo massively disrupted their conference at the end of 2013, they’ve been
cagier about where they meet.

For
the first online action for the week of action against workfare, we want to
target the ERSA and spotlight the violence they do to claimants through
workfare, ‘training’, and sanctions. Their work relies on coercion,
threats, and the imposition of poverty. So at the AGM we’ll find
the Employment Related Services Association talking over new ways of presenting
the same lies about
workfare.Their past conferences have been attended by people
like Esther McVey (Minister of State for Employment); the head researcher of
Iain Duncan Smith’s thinktank Centre for Social Justice; the heads of workfare
companies like Avanta, Seetec, G4S and Pinnacle People; the heads of massive
charity workfare users like Groundwork and the Salvation Army; and the boss
of the company that forced unemployed people to get changed under a
bridge for the Queen’s Jubilee.

Contracts
to these companies and others that ERSA represents are worth billions of
pounds. Fees for delivery of one part of one workfare scheme, for two years, in
England, Scotland, and Wales, are over £250 million. And all this is money wasted: the schemes don’t do what we’re told they’re
supposed to do, they just cause poverty, homelessness, anxiety, and death.

The
ERSA’s tagline is ‘giving a voice to the employment support sector’. But the
industry doesn’t need a voice – it certainly has no interest in hearing from the
people its members’ jobs exploit. Why should they be able to sit and calmly
discuss ‘employment support’, as if they were unemployed people’s benevolent
helpers?